


Change My Mind

by seven (sevenpoints)



Series: The Second Go Series [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-05
Updated: 2013-07-05
Packaged: 2017-12-17 17:34:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/870149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sevenpoints/pseuds/seven
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>But baby if you say you want me to stay</i>
  <br/>
  <i>I'll change my mind</i>
</p><p>Follows 3.05</p>
            </blockquote>





	Change My Mind

“I don’t like this.”

“Isaac.”

“I don’t like this!” Isaac was pacing, legs bumping into the pull-out couch at every other turn until he blinked and he’d folded it shut again without missing a beat. “Look at me! I haven’t been this out of control since the first week after the bite!”

Scott stayed where he was, standing in, but carefully not blocking, the doorway. “This situation’s messing with all of us, man. My abilities have been all over the place too.”

“Really? Have you looked up and realized you’ve been pounding someone’s face in without knowing it?” His hand was shaking like he could still feel the blows reverberating up his bones. The walls were too close. Scott’s presence in the doorway was comforting, but he was still crowding him from six feet away. “I need to get out of here.” A devastating thought. “I should go.”

“What? No you shouldn’t!”

“What if your mom wakes me up coming home one night and she’s the next person I hurt?” Scott looked immediately ill and Isaac knew he was right. “It’s not safe for her to be around me. It’s not safe for anyone to be around me.”

Scott went silent, thinking, and Isaac did his best not to climb the walls while he waited.

“You could sleep in my room again,” Scott said at length. “So I’m there, if you have a nightmare or something, and so someone knows if you run out.”

No good. “And what if I hurt you?”

The other boy tried to smile. “I’m not afraid of you.”

“ _I’m_ afraid of me! Do you think I could live with it if I hurt you? After everything you’ve done for me?”

“Isaac, it’s just a couch--”

“That’s not everything, and you know it’s not. Being--” _with you_ “--friends with you is the only good thing that’s happened to me ever since Derek pulled me out of that grave.”

That only made Scott more determined. “Well, since you are friends with me, you should know that you’re stuck with me. I’m not gonna throw you out to go camp in the woods and hope the alphas don’t find you.”

“Scott--”

“Just one night!” Scott took a step forward, then another when Isaac felt his heart settle. “Let’s just try it for one night. You can tell me whether you still think you should go in the morning.”

Isaac did his best to control his expression, but he knew it was pleading. “Don’t let me hurt you.”

This time, Scott’s smile was genuine. “You won’t.”

+++

To the extent that they could, they tried to keep their werewolf business out of Melissa’s house. It wasn’t like they didn’t have plenty of time in school and around town to go over and over every detail from every angle, trying to find a solution. So when they went up to Scott’s room, they talked about homework. Isaac’s grades had slipped last year and they weren’t getting any better with all the new distractions, but Scott was determined that they would both finish this year with 3.5 GPAs.

It pretty much meant that Scott was teaching Isaac their entire junior year curriculum since Isaac hadn’t taken a single note thus far in the semester, but he insisted that doing so helped him remember it all, because Scott could never help anyone without making them feel like he was the one getting a boost.

That night, Scott made Isaac wrestle with their stats homework. They dragged the pillows off the bed to sit on the floor and lean back against the mattresses with their books spread around them while Isaac tried to grasp the difference between chi-squared analysis and t-tests.

“This is useless,” he groaned. “I can’t concentrate.”

“Yes you can.”

“McCall, saying things like that doesn’t actually make them true.”

“I’m not just saying it, I know it. I’ve seen you concentrate plenty of times.”

“Yeah, well, tonight is not gonna be one of those times.” He peered at Scott’s notebook.

“No copying!” Scott yelled, covering the page.

“I’m not copying, I’m seeing if you’re done, and you are, so.” He snapped his own book shut. “Can we get out of here?”

“And go where?”

“Anywhere, I don’t care. I just need to burn some energy if you want either of us to sleep tonight.” He stood and hopped around a little, feeling like his head was going to burst up through the ceiling. “I’ll buy you a tank of gas if you take me out on your bike again.”

Scott sighed, but he was putting away his books. “You don’t have to get me gas, I get like sixty miles per gallon on that thing.”

“Just let me buy you some gas so I don’t feel like such a freaking freeloader.”

Scott took them on a long, winding road into the undeveloped woods between one town and the next. Between the wind and the roar of the engine Isaac couldn’t hear anything beyond their heartbeats and the steady breaths they sucked in through the helmets. He thought it’d be awkward trying to fit on the back of Scott’s bike, but Scott tucked between his knees easily, and being taller meant he could see over Scott’s helmet and anticipate the turns. He leaned into each one, balancing his weight with Scott’s so that they swung around smoothly before rocking upright and tilting into the next turn. It felt like he, Scott and the bike were all one well-oiled machine, roaring down a never-ending road that unwound endlessly into the beam of the single headlight.

Scott finally brought them out to the cliff that showed them all of Beacon Hills lit up below them, safe and contained and, from up here, quiet. Isaac dismounted slowly; he’d started out just holding Scott by the hips, but at some point he’d relaxed, winding his arms around him until they were pressed together, muscles shifting their weight in unison. Now that he was standing on his own again he felt cold.

“What’s that?” Scott asked.

“What?”

“On your shirt.” He reached over and pulled away what looked like a black net that was caught on Isaac’s hem. “Oh, it’s my stitches!” He yanked up his own shirt, revealing his perfectly healed side. “I guess my body spat them back out.”

“Oh. Awesome!” And really gross to picture. Isaac turned back to the town to try to stop thinking about it. “Do you ever think about leaving?” he asked.

Scott seemed startled. “Uh, no.”

“Really? Never?” Isaac spread his arms; from up here, he could practically fit the entire town in their span. “It never feels claustrophobic to you?”

Scott smiled wryly. “I think you’re projecting.”

“Yeah, probably.” Then again, Scott had a place here like Isaac hadn’t had since he was a kid. “Sometimes I can’t tell whether it’s me wanting to leave or the town pushing me out.”

“If you want to leave, you know you can. Derek would freak out, but he wouldn’t force you to stay.”

“Yeah, he’s a pretty shitty alpha, but compared to Deucalion’s pack I guess he’s not actually that bad.”

Scott sighed, aggravated. “If they hadn’t showed up things would be different. When Derek talks about his family you can tell, they were just normal people. Who happened to be werewolves. No fighting, no hunters, no rival packs.”

“You would think, with everything he’s lost, he would have known better than to give the bite to a bunch of screw-ups.” The night was climbing inside his clothes, slithering over his skin like a cold sweat. “He should have found someone happy. We’re bad luck.”

“It’s not your fault.” He heard Scott’s heart quicken as he stepped closer. “Hey, Isaac. You know that absolutely none of this is your fault, right? Your dad is not your fault. Derek is not your fault.”

“I asked for the bite.”

“He tricked you! Seriously, would you have said yes if you’d known it was gonna be like this?” He put his hands on Isaac’s shoulders and waited until Isaac could stand to meet his eyes. “You didn’t ask for any of the horrible shit that’s happened to you.”

“Then why,” Isaac asked, voice suddenly rough, “does it keep happening to me?”

Scott’s hands tightened on his shoulders. “Maybe because you haven’t had anyone watching your back.” He was warming with concern and the heat of it bled into Isaac, chasing out the cold. “I mean, seriously, when’s the last time Derek talked to you about anything other than needing your help?”

Isaac had to think about that one.

“The training, I guess. My second full moon, when he taught me how to control the shift. After that it was the crap with the Argents taking up all his time, and now it’s the alphas.”

“You’re making excuses for him.”

“Yeah, well, he’s all I’ve got,” Isaac snapped, breaking away. “He chose me, and I stayed.”

“You were going to leave once.”

“I changed my mind.”

“You didn’t change it for him.” Scott was close again, although he wasn’t touching him yet. “You came back for me once. Will you stay for me now?”

He laughed bitterly. “I guess you guys haven’t run out of uses for me yet.”

“Never.”

His laughter died in his throat.

“And, Isaac, I don’t want to be presumptuous but...I think maybe you need me too. Or if not me, then _someone_. Even beyond all this werewolf stuff, you’re seventeen. Someone’s supposed to be taking care of you.”

“You’re seventeen too.”

“Yeah, well, correct me if I’m wrong but I think you’ve had enough adults barking threats at you.” Isaac certainly wasn’t going to argue with that. “Derek didn’t know how to be there for you, but I can at least try.”

He’d already been trying. “You’ve done a pretty good job so far.”

“Isaac. Like I said, you can leave anytime you want. But I want you to stay.

They stayed there, quiet, until the moon was high above them. When Scott got back on his bike, Isaac was right behind him.

**Author's Note:**

> Title and summary from "Change My Mind" by One Direction.


End file.
